OTTAWA • Costas Menegakis didn’t have the required pass when he got on a Ottawa bus last week. It wasn’t a regular bus, and it wasn’t a regular transit pass the driver wanted. It was a little green bus, one of 11 that tool around Parliament Hill, and it’s a government-issued pass that is needed for entry.
The service is free to its users, and it serves a select clientele.
“You want to see my pass?” asked Mr. Menegakis, the Tory MP for Richmond Hill in suburban Toronto.
He pulled off his glove to reveal a heavy ring with a House of Commons symbol emblazoned on it, a ring only MPs carry. The mark, which also comes in the form of a lapel pin, satisfied the driver, who continued along his four-block route, one of the dozens of loops he completes daily.
The bus service is a substitute to the walk around what is called the “Parliamentary precinct” — an area that includes a spattering of temporary offices downtown Ottawa which have been commandeered due to ongoing renovations on the Hill.

Green buses line up on Parliament Hill to shuttle MPs a few meters on a beautiful day. http://t.co/shLyTpKj

The free service is not without controversy among those who consider it a perk, and the walk to Parliament Hill seems like it would be a nice one, curving along a cliff above the Ottawa River and weaving through statues of former Prime Ministers.
But in mid-February the wind off the water would have the most robust commuter arriving to work on the Hill with watery eyes and a red face. So government employees — from backbenchers to cafeteria workers and security guards — wait at the unmarked bus stops near parking lots and government offices for a green bus.
Inside, it is it a strange place — part school bus, part luxury casino shuttle — where rival MPs can find themselves sitting beside one another.

The dozen buses are among the few vehicles granted unrestricted access to the heavily guarded Parliamentary grounds. Along with delivery trucks and the fleet of black sedans that transport high-ranking cabinet ministers and Stephen Harper, these buses navigate through a series of security card swipes in order to pass through retractable barricades, called bollards, that have been operational since late last year.
RCMP officials responsible for the Hill say security enhancements are part of a “heightened sensitivity” since 9/11. Last month, House of Commons Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers ordered that all shuttle bus riders must show proper Parliament access passes “to ensure continued security,” according to a noticed taped to windows on the 16-seat shuttles.
When the government revealed a $522,000 project to expand the shuttle bus system in 2011 to reach the temporary offices, it baffled at least one onlooker at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, who noted that those in the private sector “have to walk to where we go to work.”
On Friday, a federation spokesman called the shuttles “a symptom of a bloated and entitled class of federal politicians,’” and noted it is not clear how much the bus costs taxpayers.
“They don’t have to tell you what it costs, and they won’t,” said federal director Gregory Thomas.

A spokesperson from the Board of Internal Economy, the all-party committee that runs it, said she could not provide the total cost associated with the bus service, or the number of drivers currently employed — since drivers work on both buses and delivery trucks around the Hill.
Some parliamentarians insist the bus network is essential to fulfilling their duties, which often demand that they be in “four places at once.” But the House of Commons body that oversees the buses seems to have started to disagree.
After a government memo last year revealed $30-million in cuts to House of Commons spending, at least six bus drivers were “quietly” laid off over the summer, sources close to the bus system said. (A government spokesperson said ‘‘six term positions … were not renewed and the other savings were done through attrition.”)

Related

The cuts, which will be fully implemented in by next year, were part of a “savings and reductions strategy” approved by the Board of Internal Economy. In addition to bus service rollbacks, the strategy also eliminated a messenger service that picked up and dropped off parliamentarians’ dry cleaning.
Heather Bradley, a spokesperson for Speaker and Board of Internal Economy Chair Andrew Scheer, did note that $2.4-million will have been cut from “service delivery,” including the buses by next year.
But the Hill has become used to its free buses.
House of Commons Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers oversees the bus system, so “to him falls the happy task of trying to keep everyone more or less happy with the schedule of buses,” Commons clerk Audrey O’Brien told the House of Commons Affairs committee in 2012. And according to Ms. O’Brien, members “have not been shy” about visiting Mr. Vickers.

At that meeting, Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux complained that the shuttles would often “cluster together,” forcing Mr. Lamoureux and his colleagues “of all political parties” too often wait five minutes before four buses arrived at once.
“Common sense doesn’t necessarily apply,” Mr. Lamoureux said.
The MP from Winnipeg North was also upset that on an express route to the La Promenade Building — across the street from Parliament Hill — the driver refused to drop him off in between stops.
The bus system currently offers four routes, making a total of 17 stops between them. The main route makes a loop around the Hill grounds to parking lots and federal buildings at the west-end — less than a kilometre away. The others take parliamentary personnel to three different government buildings scattered around four blocks in downtown Ottawa.
“Sometimes members are frustrated because they want to be let off somewhere … [that would] deviate from the route,” Ms. O’Brien said in the meeting. “But in fairness to the bus drivers, they have a very specific route and they’re not allowed to improvise on it.”
Now, with service cuts fully implemented, the buses have been reduced to between 7 a.m and 7 p.m. from Monday to Thursday when the House is sitting — though they used to run until 11 p.m. On Fridays, they stop at 5:15 p.m. When the House is in recess, service is substantially reduced and stops around 4 p.m.
The Senate runs a separate service for its members, providing two white buses instead of green ones. In 2012, B.C. Tory MP Bob Zimmer asked about “combining the service and reducing redundancies. “Little things like that can have a cost,” he said, according to meeting minutes.

But while the savings strategy had “really looked at everything,” combining the two shuttle networks wasn’t going to happen, Speaker Andrew Scheer said.
Since the cuts to bus service, commuting to meetings around Parliament Hill has become “a lot more panicked” says Green Party leader Elizabeth May, an unlikely ally of the gas-fuelled buses, considering her party’s stance on carbon emissions.
Ms. May and her colleagues often find themselves needed in the House of Commons and a committee meeting downtown simultaneously.
“You can’t slice yourself up into four different pieces,” she said. “[The buses are] the only way to manage around here.”
Plus, she says, “running between buildings” is a proven safety risk, riddling off a list of MPs and senators who have recently broken bones on their icy walks around campus.

This past Tuesday, Ms. May was on her way to examine the government’s highly anticipated annual budget ahead of its afternoon unveiling. When Tory MP Larry Miller asks about her forthcoming bill about Lyme disease, the two launch into an involved discussion about ticks on a particular hawk near the Canadian west coast.
“One of my constituents called me today and asked if I knew what was in the budget,” Mr. Menegakis told fellow Conservative MP Leon Benoit.
“I get that all the time,” Mr. Benoit said.